The Sopranos wrapped on Sunday night, not in an Italian restaurant but in a typically American diner and to the strains of Steve Perry singing Journey’s classically cheesy power ballad “Don’t Stop Believing.” Stopped mid-sentence as a matter of fact, without any neatly satisfying conclusion, shocking twists or gunfire montage. There were inferences and implications, and subtle references to earlier foreshadowing, but the overriding theme was one of unbearable mounting tension leading to a jarring cut to black. I won’t break down the final scene but suffice to say it was both dense and abstract, frustrating and telling, unsatisfying yet wholly appropriate.
I watched the premiere episode eight and a half years ago, which in itself is a bit jarring. I caught the second showing at two in the morning, five hours after it played the previous evening. I had no intention of watching but was in a typically sleepless state alone in my house in San Francisco and something about the main guy drew me in. He resembled me physically, was depressed, had panic attacks, family issues and was seeing a female shrink. He did things with his face that reminded me of myself. As it turned out, it was a hell of a show.
I had an uneasy feeling before watching the final episode on Sunday night. It didn’t have to do with the program itself or how it would end but more about the passing of time and the questions we all face, to varying degrees and with different levels of introspection. I sat alone on a bench across the river from Jersey and watched the sun set. Then I watched the finale. I’ve thought about it quite a bit since, kind of like you sometimes do when someone close to you dies. Granted it’s just a TV show but I don’t feel the need to make apologies. A good chunk of my life passed during the years it was on and I had a lot of decent conversations with people who matter and mattered to me about various plot lines, symbolism and themes. In the end it was about almost everything that defines us, particularly in this country. Family, hypocrisy, love, lust, nostalgia, violence, hope, futility, psychology, the bullshit of Psychology, the little guy, the big guy, ambition, laziness, the promises we keep and the lies we tell ourselves and everybody else. And whacking .. it had a lot of whacking. There have been numerous complaints about the way in which David Chase chose to end things and this reminds me of a line spoken by Agent Harris in the first episode of this season, well over a year ago: “nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” Fortunately Chase never chose to condescend or play to the lowest common denominator and this instinct served him well all the way to the end. (6/12/07)
A woman fell through a metal grate in the sidewalk a few weeks back. It was a poorly welded Con Edison cover and she dropped about fifteen feet to the ground below. I watched it on the news – there one second and gone the next, a perfect life encapsulation in a few sketchy black and white video fields . The incident was captured by one of the thousands of covertly positioned security cameras eyeing the entire city and beyond. I read somewhere that London has the most security cameras. It’s a great tool for providing candid images of bomb-toting extremist recruits minutes before they consummate their fun-filled outings. I suppose if we’re able to stare long enough into their intent-on-mayhem eyes, we can confirm that they were indeed irked at an unfair world and the lack of clearly printed life instructions in most delivery rooms. This whole permanently on-camera phenomenon is relatively new yet subliminally accepted by most city dwellers, as evidenced by the ease with which I snapped the shot of my z-catching R Train buddy above. Images are instant and more disposable than the most disposable of film cameras. Google Earth now has a zoom feature allowing for satellite cleavage scoping and evaluating disturbing dental flaws. It’s all going down in the record books and going down faster than ever before. Faster than a midtown misstep with nothing to catch on your way down.
When my dad was a young man he would occasionally cover local news events with his motion picture camera, filming a fire in San Francisco, processing the footage in the basement of his Russian Hill home, and driving it over to the station. This was, of course, pre-video. Pre-cell phone. Pre-cell phone video. If you were going to capture somebody’s likeness or a newsworthy event, you tried to make it worth it. But there’s no longer any “worth-it” out there. Everything’s instant, digitized, and constantly on. Immediately and permanently logged, blogged and filed away. Personally speaking, it’s a perfect metaphor for the passage of time in my own family. Being in the film business, my parents’ wedding was shot on sixteen millimeter and professionally edited by a cameraman acquaintance. Our home movies are all in sixteen Ektachrome and unusually crisp, evoking the feel of Doris Day or Rock Hudson in a blue dress or suit. Technically speaking the format is less sophisticated than what’s readily available today, but emotionally speaking it’s got it over the digital age in spades.
Speaking of the parents, I saw them for a few days this week on a stopover leg of their London trip. We ate well, had drinks at the hotel, and I walked the old man all over the city. Uptown, Downtown, Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade. Held Mom’s hand through Times Square as she queried whether the steam from the manhole covers was due to “bakeries doon below.” Each moment seemed oddly like a still frame, like a distinct print etched in my mind. And we didn’t take any pictures. (6/2/07)
Well, it was inevitable that I’d have to weigh in on this one eventually. At forty-three years old and with every steroid-detecting dog in the country assigned to his beat, Barry Bonds continues to hit baseballs like a man who never got the news that this is one of the most difficult things to do in all of sports. And with equally impressive conviction, every grammatically-challenged yahoo west of China continues to offer their opinion on his undeserving, overrated, un-Henry Aaron like ass.
Getting someone to attest to Bond’s status as a colossal jerk is about as difficult as finding a parent with reservations about letting their kid attend a Michael Jackson sleep-over. His alleged personality flaws are as legendary as his splash-landing home runs in the San Francisco Bay. What’s much more curious are the legions of “baseball fans” willing to put their keen insight on the line for an opportunity to make the case that he isn’t only undeserving of the home run crown, he’s not even near the hitter that his statistics would suggest. Prominent among this field of detractors are the baseball “purists” who relish the chance to point out that, because of his steroid use over several seasons, all of Bond’s accomplishments are going in the record book “with an asterisk.” The last time I checked, baseball (and its history) was far from pure. From the 1919 Black Sox Scandal to Mike Scott’s emery board to Sammy Sosa’s corked bat, our national pastime has reflected this great country of ours in its participants’ never-ending quest to gain an unfair advantage over the other guy. The only thing that separates the steroids scandal is its overwhelming prevalence among large numbers playing the game. And the only thing separating Bonds from this pack is his ability. You don’t see too many people calling for the head of Marvin Benard, do you?
The only fair gauge for any athlete’s ability is how he stacks up against the players of his own era. It would be undeniably naive to assume that any advantage available to one is not there for all. There was a time before the Michael Jordan era when they hadn’t even invented the jump-shot. Hank Aaron hit the majority of his home runs in a shoe box. Babe Ruth never played against black ballplayers. To call oneself a baseball fan and at the same time deny Barry Bond’s talent is completely incongruous. I don’t claim to know much about anything, but I’ve been following the game for roughly thirty-five years and I’ve never seen a hitter like Bonds. His pitch discipline and on-base percentage are every bit as impressive as the number of homers he hits. His swing is so good that he makes it look easy; what he does with his hands alone is phenomenal. His mere presence at the plate not only influences every game he plays, it makes any game, regardless of the standings, worth watching. Ultimately, he’s made this home run record thing infinitely more fascinating, if only for the hoards claiming that they won’t be paying attention. If they really don’t care, why do the boos follow him from the on deck circle to his post in left field? Why is every baseball discussion board filled with arguments proclaiming his approaching record a non-event? It’s because a villain is always infinitely more fascinating than a hero, and particularly a supremely talented, unapologetic one.
I for one am going to be following Barry, not because I’m a Giants fan or even a baseball fan, but because it’s fun. And I’m going to enjoy every dinger he hits from here on, as much as I will every fat, middle-aged white guy standing in the bleachers in St. Louis, holding a “cheater” sign just above his prodigious boiler. It’s the American way .. (4/29/07)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Pull up the collar on my traveling coat
Sell that miserable pleasure boat
Johnny Cash, “I’m Leaving Now”
From what I’ve heard, the concept of a miserable pleasure boat isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem. It’s been said that the day a man buys his first boat is only surpassed in pleasure by the day he sells it. I wouldn’t know, having never been a boat owner. But I do relate to Johnny’s song, which has more to do with the act of leaving than it does nautical purchases.
The nice thing about leaving is the illusion that it goes a long way toward avoiding being left. It’s a decent illusion as illusions go, and is typically sustainable all the way up until one comes face to face with the Big Leave: getting away from oneself. Short of drastic measure, this is usually where the illusion ends.
Having grown up and lived most of my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was interested in seeing the David Fincher film “Zodiac” which follows the history of the serial killer’s reign, beginning in the late sixties. I thought it was quite a good film, particularly in its attention to detail for the time period. While watching, I found myself reflecting on an older, more distant San Francisco, and thinking “yeah .. that’s when the place was alright.” But of course this kind of thinking is a product of age and nostalgia, and I’ve heard similar sentiment from many of the people I’ve met in New York. While it’s a given that there have been substantial changes in the makeup of most large, metropolitan areas, I believe that many of the complaints people have about where they live can be traced to individual circumstances and relationships. (Although an argument could be made that even the most wonderful of lives is put to task in Cleveland or Boise.) As we age, a good general rule is to remember to pause before going into a rant on how much better things used to be, or are somewhere else. This same rule can also be applied to all boat transactions. (3/14/07)
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
I went to see the Stones the other night. One of those last-minute things that kind of just happened. Hadn’t planned on it and bought some tickets from a friend. Wasn’t expecting much. I’m too old for those big-stadium shows, after all, and I’m just a kid next to them. Besides, something always gets lost in the delivery. But then it was the Stones, and the least I could do, out of respect, was to make an appearance.
Easily the best show I’ve caught in years. Far surpassed the one they put on when I saw them last, in 1981. People were saying they were too old then, which is interesting because in ’81 they were the age I am now. Seeing them last Friday, I got the feeling that they don’t get too caught up in the age thing themselves. Mick continuously ran the length of the outfield-sized stage for two hours, and Keith did what he always does: chunked out fat, solid, open-G Telecaster riffs while simultaneously looking thoroughly amused and like death warmed over, cooled off, and heated back up again. Charlie Watts was sublime.
It’s interesting to compare the band and its individual members to others in the same business. I’ve never been a big Beatles fan, but they were undeniably the biggest group in the history of rock and roll. Still, while their legions of fans waited years in global circle jerk formation for the possibility of a reunion, the Stones simply kept playing. While guys like David Crosby remind us of how unattractive getting older can be and drag us through their various addictions, Keith simply ages violently, making no apologies, and seems less worried with his inability to form a coherent sentence than those waiting on him to finish. Moreover, he still plays a mean guitar.
What can I say? At about the age of fourteen, most of us become acutely aware that we’ll reach a stage in our lives where we start talking about the legends of our generation, and how the kids of today have nothing to compare. But the relevant fact is, the Stones aren’t even of my generation. I wasn’t even a year old when “Satisfaction” came out. So it is from the only semi-biased perspective of a Johnny-come-lately fan that I can reassert that yep, they pretty much are the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. (Though I hear The Hives put on a mean show.)
Saturday, November 9, 2002
Jonathan Harris is dead. I just read a story on his passing. They described him as the “flamboyantly fussy actor who portrayed the dastardly, cowardly antagonist Dr. Zachary Smith on the 1960s Sci-Fi show “Lost In Space.” As a friend of mine once put it “If you grew up watching that show as a kid, he was the first guy you were exposed to who was like that. You weren’t sure what it was, but there was something a little off there.” That is, unless you had a bachelor uncle whose name was never mentioned without a wink from your parents . (This is a bit more painful for me now, having recently become an uncle out of wedlock.)
Smith was an American Original, even though he used an affected, fruity, quasi-British accent. He was the ultimate coward, shrieking like somebody’s tortured aunt at the slightest hint of danger and weeping uncontrollably at the drop of a hat. He made ten-year-old Billy Mumy look like Clint Eastwood. And he was always engaged in great confrontations with Don Robinson, the prototypical helmet-haired alpha male who only ever uttered “Smith, I oughtta break your neck.” To which Smith would reply in his droll lisp “Major, please…spare me your venomous barbs.” I don’t think you’d find a man of Harris’s disposition cast as such a blatant coward these days, as it would be considered an offensive stereotype.. which is too bad, because he did a hell of a job.
(Editor’s update: After writing this blurb, I did some Internet research on Harris to see if there was any public record of his sexual preference. He was married for sixty-four years and had a son, as it turns out. Of course, his wife was Tony Randall..)
“It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore” – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Neil
Could there be a greater tragedy? When Dylan Thomas suggested raging against the dying light, I think what he was really getting at was raging against being no fun anymore. Who really has a problem with the unfun dying? We may make like we do for the sake of grieving widows but underneath most of us are handling it fine. Fun, in all forms, can take on widely different dimensions. There are those who are big fun by virtue of being insufferable pains in the ass. Some of these people are entirely aware of how much fun they are and others are not. I appreciate this form of covert, subversive fun. It differs from the Robin Williams overt brand where one is always openly in need of response. The covert and miserably fun often seem content to toil in obscurity. They ask little in return for being miserably fun and are often content to go it alone. For this I applaud them.
Even more rare and perhaps most coveted are the unintentionally covert fun. So uncommon is this quality that I tend to think it might only exist in the minds of those deciding who these people are. I put Giants baseball announcer Duane Kuiper in this category. Kuiper is a lot of fun because underneath his play-by-play calling there seems to be an unspoken level of adequately-controlled depression. He jokes about the one major league home run he hit because he can. How many of us even get to the major leagues? His tone and demeanor make these self-deprecating barbs more poignant and suggest genuine darkness and despair. The beauty of this is that I’ve no doubt made it up in my own head and nobody else (including Kuiper) is giving it any thought.
Everybody funny .. now you funny, too.
Semi non sequiturs notwithstanding, George Thorogood is my kind of rock star. He’s got that Delaware blues thing down well and opened for the Stones in ’81. Still, he placed more importance on playing semi-pro baseball and often put his promising musical career on hold to do so. How much more delusional could a grown man get? He was lucky enough to sell albums with titles like “Get a Haircut” and write songs with lyrics like “I really, really, really, really, really, really like girls,” yet cocky enough to pursue the one-in-a-million dream of being a pro ballplayer. Now there’s some fun.
So Ron Howard won a few Academy Awards for his latest movie.. A Simple Mind or A Beautiful Plan or something like this. I didn’t see it. I like Ron Howard alright.. I mean, he was a cool little kid on The Andy Griffith Show, sporting some fine short-sleeved shirts and a truly earnest face. And his stint as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days held water, at least for the first few seasons when he played it down and was a solid counter to Henry Winkler’s Fonz who was still wearing the much cooler blue, cloth jacket at that stage and not saying much. (Winkler lost any credibility he might have had as a James Dean figure shortly after switching to leather and getting bigger speaking parts.) It’s as a director that I started having real problems with Howard. Films like “Backdraft” and “The Paper” are packed with so much dramatic Hollywood cheese, they just scream “Opie’s A Big Boy Now!” Saying his style lacks understatement doesn’t cover it. He seems way too caught up in the idea that everyone still pictures him wearing a letterman’s jacket and drinking a milkshake at Arnold’s. But I’m certain that he will hit his stride eventually, when he gets the courage to go against studio support, finance his own feature, and move younger brother Clint up from bit part to starring role. He’s got the money now from a string of commercial hits, so why not put some of it up himself to pair Clint with Cameron Diaz or whomever in a romantic epic? That’s when I will admit that Opie has truly arrived. (4/5/02)
